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■
JUN 23 1
IN PARTY POWER STRUGGLE
Wallace plans riin into problems
BY LOYE MILLER JR.
WASHINGTON
Alabama Gov. George Wallace's plans to run for president
again in 1976 have already run into difficulty, more than two
years before the next presidential nominating conventions.
The setback is far from fatal. Polls still show the doughty
Alabamian to be the first choice of more Democrats than anyone
else except Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
But the governor has been faring badly in his efforts to carve
out a bloc of delegates to assure that he would wield power at the
Democratic Party's "mini-convention," a first-time event set in
Kansas City next December.
In fact, it looks as if most of the 2,043 delegates will be rank-
and-file "party worker" types with no really fierce loyalties to
any particular candidate or cause within the party's wide and
fractured spectrum.
IT MEANS that neither Wallace, George McGovern, Ted
Kennedy nor any other prominent party leader will have a large,
identifiable bloc of delegates.
National Chairman Robert Strauss and many other party
leaders had feared that it would turn into a bloody battleground
on which the bitter party infighting of 1972 would flare up again.
Because this 1974 convention effort was intended to be the
first step in Wallace's next reach for the presidency, failure to
get a large bloc of delegates has left the governor and his political
strategists thoroughly frustrated and at least a bit cranky.
"We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," a Wallace
political lieutenant snapped peevishly during a telephone interview from the governor's unofficial national
campaign headquarters in Montgomery.
"If we'd won a lot of delegates, the people who always have
been against the governor would be sounding the alarm. But
when we don't get 'em, they throw that up against him, too."
— and so enjoy a chance to make h|e Democratic machinery and
rules more to his liking. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Most important of all, by usindthe mini-convention delegate
selection as a training ground, he 3ould have built the skeleton of
a nationwide presidential campaign organization for 1976.
BUT SINCE there are no presidential primaries to be held
this year, almost all of the Democratic delegates to Kansas City
are being chosen through the inten a! party caucus process. And
it is readily evident that Wallace efforts to make this caucus
process work for him for the first ti le have failed utterly.
This does not mean that Wallai. cannot become a power to be
reckoned with anyway in 1976 — h has dropped broad hints that
he aspires to be slated then as he party's vice presidential
nominee.
"Look," said South Carolina Democratic State Chairman
Don Fowler in a telephone inte view, "don't underestimate
George Wallace. If we had a pres( lential primary election here
this year, he'd do well — he'd probably win it."
"But his movement is clearly la personality thing," Fowler
continued. "When he's on the ball it, he can get the votes. But
those voting for him just aren't the lind of people who participate
in the party's operations and org inization. When we held our
precinct caucuses (for the Kansi s City convention selection)
none of 'em showed up."
AS HIS well-touted delegation
Wallace has also suffered other rectoit
The governor's top political aid i
their dream 1976 Democratic ti ket
Presidentand Wallace as his running
Mi ■ aq
operation has thus flopped,
setbacks as well.
s have made it no secret that
would be Kennedy for
-mate.
But after more than a year of being cautiously cordial toward
the idea of a political alliance with the governor, Kennedy has
recently begun to say flatly that their philosophical differences
are too great to allow him to share a ticket with Wallace.
And then last weekend, Wallace failed in an all-out attempt to
wrest control of the Democratic Party leadership in his own state
from a group of "regular" Democrats who ne< <r fuoported the
governor's independent party presidential ambi ons
SUCH REVERSES are not staggering, but they can only
hinder Wallace's ambitions to win himself a new respectability in
the Democratic ranks by 1976
"I think the biggest story of this year is not that we've lost in
some caucuses, but that we're even in 'em in the first place,"
says Wallace political strategist Michael "Mickey" Griffin,
contrasting this to 1968 when Wallace bolted the Democrats and
ran a third-party presidential candidacy.
"Look, we're trying to work within the party framework. The
governor is telling his people to support the Democratic Party
and then try to change it," continues Griffin.
"And if there aren't many Wallace delegates getting elected,
you don't find any calling themselves Kennedy delegates or
McGovern delegates, either, but nobody's writing about that," he
complains.
But Wallace must live with the fact that he deliberately tried
to win delegates this year and has thus far failed, while no other
1976 Democratic hopeful has run the risk of staking a bit of his
political reputation on the membership of this year's mini-
convention.
—Knight News

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Full Text

■
JUN 23 1
IN PARTY POWER STRUGGLE
Wallace plans riin into problems
BY LOYE MILLER JR.
WASHINGTON
Alabama Gov. George Wallace's plans to run for president
again in 1976 have already run into difficulty, more than two
years before the next presidential nominating conventions.
The setback is far from fatal. Polls still show the doughty
Alabamian to be the first choice of more Democrats than anyone
else except Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
But the governor has been faring badly in his efforts to carve
out a bloc of delegates to assure that he would wield power at the
Democratic Party's "mini-convention," a first-time event set in
Kansas City next December.
In fact, it looks as if most of the 2,043 delegates will be rank-
and-file "party worker" types with no really fierce loyalties to
any particular candidate or cause within the party's wide and
fractured spectrum.
IT MEANS that neither Wallace, George McGovern, Ted
Kennedy nor any other prominent party leader will have a large,
identifiable bloc of delegates.
National Chairman Robert Strauss and many other party
leaders had feared that it would turn into a bloody battleground
on which the bitter party infighting of 1972 would flare up again.
Because this 1974 convention effort was intended to be the
first step in Wallace's next reach for the presidency, failure to
get a large bloc of delegates has left the governor and his political
strategists thoroughly frustrated and at least a bit cranky.
"We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," a Wallace
political lieutenant snapped peevishly during a telephone interview from the governor's unofficial national
campaign headquarters in Montgomery.
"If we'd won a lot of delegates, the people who always have
been against the governor would be sounding the alarm. But
when we don't get 'em, they throw that up against him, too."
— and so enjoy a chance to make h|e Democratic machinery and
rules more to his liking. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Most important of all, by usindthe mini-convention delegate
selection as a training ground, he 3ould have built the skeleton of
a nationwide presidential campaign organization for 1976.
BUT SINCE there are no presidential primaries to be held
this year, almost all of the Democratic delegates to Kansas City
are being chosen through the inten a! party caucus process. And
it is readily evident that Wallace efforts to make this caucus
process work for him for the first ti le have failed utterly.
This does not mean that Wallai. cannot become a power to be
reckoned with anyway in 1976 — h has dropped broad hints that
he aspires to be slated then as he party's vice presidential
nominee.
"Look," said South Carolina Democratic State Chairman
Don Fowler in a telephone inte view, "don't underestimate
George Wallace. If we had a pres( lential primary election here
this year, he'd do well — he'd probably win it."
"But his movement is clearly la personality thing," Fowler
continued. "When he's on the ball it, he can get the votes. But
those voting for him just aren't the lind of people who participate
in the party's operations and org inization. When we held our
precinct caucuses (for the Kansi s City convention selection)
none of 'em showed up."
AS HIS well-touted delegation
Wallace has also suffered other rectoit
The governor's top political aid i
their dream 1976 Democratic ti ket
Presidentand Wallace as his running
Mi ■ aq
operation has thus flopped,
setbacks as well.
s have made it no secret that
would be Kennedy for
-mate.
But after more than a year of being cautiously cordial toward
the idea of a political alliance with the governor, Kennedy has
recently begun to say flatly that their philosophical differences
are too great to allow him to share a ticket with Wallace.
And then last weekend, Wallace failed in an all-out attempt to
wrest control of the Democratic Party leadership in his own state
from a group of "regular" Democrats who ne<